


it would end before it could grow old

by kimaracretak



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dreams, F/F, Mild Praise Kink, Past Character Death, names and what we leave behind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 09:05:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9540845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: Alone in Kymal, Vex dreams (she is nothing so simple as 'alone')Spoilers for episode 83





	

**Author's Note:**

> title from xandria, 'queen of hearts reborn'

Kymal is _loud._ It's a shock to Vex, after the island's whispered secrets, Whitestone's quiet mourning. There are drunks tumbling up and down the street outside, music drifting up from downstairs, Eskil pacing in the room next door, Trinket snuffling quietly in the corner.

Kymal is still not enough to drown death's silent void, that which Vex has felt curling tighter and tighter around her with every passing hour since she woke on the floor of Thordak's lair in Pike's arms.

Vex leans out the window and wonders what would happen if she fell, again.

It's an idle thought, one she doesn't mean to do anything with, but there is a comfort there: the knowledge of the flight and the black after the fall where she still doesn't have to touch the ground, until ...

... until her wonderful, idiot brother hands his soul and his life and his death over to a goddess to keep her alive.

Her wonderful, idiot brother who may or may not be trying to bargain for Scanlan's return while she isn't there to hold him and tether him to the life he fought so hard to give her.

Vex slams the shutter hard enough to crack one of the thin wood boards and throws herself face-down on the bed in despair. Kymal's crowds are empty without Vax. This town doesn't care that the world was saved, or that too many people died for it and might not come back. The conversations outside are edged with a frantic desperation that reminds her of the dancing circle in the Feywild more than she would like, and she slips from the bed to tuck her head under Trinket's chin and muffle the sound with his quiet snores.

She doesn't expect to sleep at all, resigned to the longest and loneliest night of her life waiting for news, but dreams take her as the moon rises.

 

**

 

Vex dreams of flying. 

It is an old dream, a well-loved one that she's carried through Bryoden and Syngorn and Emon and across all the roads in between, but tonight it is not a comfort. Tonight she flies not effortlessly, not on the carpet, not even on the broom that's nearly taken her life more than once. Tonight raven's wings bloom across her back and she flies through blood.

 _Oh,_  she thinks, staring down where the ground is only crimson. _Oh. Is this what Vax saw, when he traded himself for me?_

She has seen death twice and it has never looked like this, never been so freeing.

There is no guide in this neverworld, nothing but the inevitability of flight. Had Vax seen something, when he reached out with all his love and made his bargain with the ruler of this world? Had Percival seen something, dead for a day before they laid the path for his return? Does Scanlan see something now, now that his soul has shaken off the call of his first resurrection?

In her dream, Vex closes her eyes and demands an answer. 

 

**

 

Vex dreams of her brother's god.

The Raven Queen stands faceless before her, feathers and fire and inky black. Still Vex knows she is smiling.

"What did you do to my brother?" she asks. "What did you do to — to the rest of my family?"

"To my champion, only what he asked," the Raven Queen says, and leaves the other question untouched. "Worry not, Vex'ahlia, he is still yours as well."

Vex does not kneel, but her name in the Raven Queen's voice makes her think she could, and that it wouldn't even hurt.

"Why not me?" This question is harder, secret even from her waking mind, because she does not resent her life, not really. But after a life being passed over, she needs to know: is she really so broken that not even death wishes to sit by her?

"Vex'ahlia," the Raven Queen says, and Vex's body throbs with wants she cannot pin down. "I have your name. I have the times you visit me — too many times for your brother's liking. What makes you think I did not decide to take neither of you, but instead to keep you both?"

Vex shivers as phantom feathers trail across her shoulders and down her arms. She is not used to being wanted like this, so wholly and so carefully. She holds herself still, still like a hunter, though the air around her sings she has already been caught.

The feathers shift into fingertips at her chin, holding her firmly. "Good girl, Vex'ahlia." In the Raven Queen's mouth, her name is something _else_. "You will walk for me, won't you? You'll be good for me."

"Yes." And now she does kneel, enveloped in heat and feathered wings, too warm to be just a dream. The barest memory of a burning kiss brushes her forehead, her lips, and she tastes blood sweeter than honey. "Yes, _yes_."

"Wonderful." Vex can see her eyes now, can see her smiling proud and hungry. "You'll know when it's time to return to me for good. She'll keep you until then."

"She..."

But there is no one else, anymore. Just Vex, and the ache in her heart that does not leave even in sleep.

 

**

 

Vex dreams of Pike.

Pike, proud and immovable leaning against the _Broken Howl_ 's side.

Pike, kneeling in their keep's broken temple, rebuilding with her celestial ally upon a foundation of her faith alone.

Pike, cradling her on the floor of Thordak's lair, the lock of hair in her palm scorching brighter than the lava.

"It's not your time," Pike whispers over and over, small hands digging fingertip bruises into Vex's cheeks. "Vex, sweetheart, you have to stay for a while longer. Not yet, not like this."

Vex reaches up to cradle her face in turn. "Hey, Pike," she says, barely audible over the slow rumble of lava. "You'll stay with me, yeah?"

Pike's smiling through tears. "Until the last dawn, Vex, I promise. You — we have so much to do, still."

 _Oh,_  Vex thinks, as she pulls Pike down to her, curls around her small body as the lava starts to cover them. _So this is how it is, to want and not destroy._

 

**

 

Pike herself is sitting on the foot of Vex's bed when she wakes, the room lit only by the divine energy of her astral projection.

"Vex," she says, and that is all she needs to say, the lines around her eyes pulled tight and sad.

Vex blinks the remnants of sleep away, and cannot shake the cold. She's less surprised than she would have been months ago. "Oh, Pike." She sits up and opens her arms, and let's the fluid solidity of Pike's form hit her square in the chest, knocking her back against Trinket's side. He huffs sleepily and leans over to lick her cheek.

Pike doesn't speak for long minutes, just rests her head on Vex's chest and breathes — probably, Vex thinks, the first moment she's had to breathe since they arrived on the island. She runs her fingers through Pike's disheveled hair, over and over. It takes her a moment to realise they're both crying.

"You know what the worst part is?" Pike finally asks.

Vex just hums in response, slowly rocking them back and forth.

"I'm not even sure I failed him," Pike admits, and her voice is rough. "He wrote me a letter — he didn't want to come back, you know. But when he fell... I wonder if I should have apologised for bringing him back the first time, but I couldn't _not._ "

"Oh, _Pike_." Vex bends down to press a kiss to the side of her head. "You're a healer, it's what you _do_."

She can feel Pike shaking her head. "It was selfish. I was thinking about Kaylie, how he wanted me to raise her, and how I couldn't. But she ... she didn't even want me to try, today. Just said goodbye and watched."

Vex sighs. "I could barely convince her to go to Whitestone at all. Family — _love_  can be like that." She thinks of Syldor, and how he doesn't know she's died at all, much less twice. She presses her cheek to Pike's and doesn't meet her eyes. "He was our friend. You had to try."

 _Be good for me,_  the Raven Queen had said. Vex hadn't expected it to mean this, hadn't expected it to be so soon.

"I fought for him," Pike says, and her voice sounds very far away. "But I knew ... from the very beginning I knew. It feels different, when it really is their time. But trying ... it means something, doesn't it?"

Vex thinks of Scanlan and wants to say, _yes_. She thinks of the Raven Queen and knows it isn't that simple. "Something," she echoes, and the word tastes like the salt of her tears, or maybe Pike's. She pulls just far enough away that she can look her in the eyes. "How do you — how do you go on like this, Pike, loving so many people that you want to fight for them all? How is it so easy for you?"

Pike's form still glows, otherworldly and beautiful and yet not at all like a dream. "It's not," she says simply, and when she leans forward and kisses Vex there's an edge of desperation to it that Vex returns. Pike's divine energy sparks against her lips, caresses her tongue, clings to her even after Pike moves back. "Sunrise to sunrise, Vex."

"What?" Vex lifts a hand to her mouth, slightly dazed. The shock of her shortened name licks across her skin, follows the movements of Pike's hands across her bare arms.

"How we move forward. Sunrise to sunrise." Her form is flickering, the projection fading, but the light and warmth still feel heavy enough to suffocate. "Come home as soon as you can, Vex. I love you. We're waiting." She's gone before Vex can say anything else.

Sunrise to sunrise. Vex turns over on the floor, lets Trinket's fur catch the tears that only slipped through Pike's astral presence. The wait for dawn feels unaccountably lighter, now.


End file.
